Why Chennai needs CAS or DTH?

I have been thinking for a long time whether to invest my money on CAS – Conditional access system or DTH Direct to Home television . Been missing some nice cartoon channels for my son.

Very recently I had been to my native place (Thrissur, Kerala) and checked out the number of channels in the Television. Whooping 100 and odd channels, Including the pay channels at a price of about 150 INR (Indian National Rupee) per month. Where as we pay 100 INR with limited channels and excluding the PAY channels. (some channels purposefully blocked due to competition, some times)
Who benefits out of this system?
Did all chennaiites say that we wanted CAS or some one took the initiatives on behalf of the people.

While looking on the recently built up on news about the DTH free offer in Chennai. Which makes me think.

Irony: Well sounds like some one decides on what we can view and what needs to be payed by the people of Chennai.

Note: There are places in chennai who don’t have CAS nor DTH and happily viewing some pay channels to for a price of 150 INR. Check Kundrathur, Chennai 69.

Ravi:
That is very much true. If we take the telecoms for example. There are enough players, because of competition the end users don’t feel like idiot, more choice is available. Where as on the TV’s it is not so. Choice here is either or.

My only comment here is that , I wouldnt mind paying for either CAS or DTH but what stops me from doing so is that inspite of paying or the “pay channel”, I am forced to watch ads.

This is not the case in Europe where there is a clear differentiation between free tv and paid tv. the later enjoy break free programs and movies. there is very little ad and it certainly wont put the subscriber off.

in chennai, i get virtually the same content but after paying for it.

i was an early adoptor for STB at Chennai but after about 1 year, I am happy with the free channels. I dont watch much TV anyway. 90% of it is BS.

V^3, I think in a way, CAS helps because I dont have to pay for channels I hardly watch but again the price is area dependent. Posh areas charge more for no big reason and again the flexibility of choosing channels is very narrow. Viewers are forced to buy packages when all they want is just 1 channel from the package.

Vivek, you are very right. I used to feel the same way. Having to pay for a channel and then seeing ads – I think its atrocious on the part of the channels. Maybe they take us for granted. They just can’t do the same in US or Europe. Guess we should protest in some way.

Propably an independant organization (like the TRAI for Telecom) should be created which can play the role of a constructive authority for the Media/Entertainment world. That might help improve the situation.

The BIG problem in India (Madras) is nobpdy protest. Everybody is immersed in their own problems or very selfish. If we start protesting / raising our voices things will change. Just see the status of OMR even after 4 years. Everybody seems to be OK with it and adjusts to it…

I visited Chennai during summer, and my dad had DTH. My son was hooked to all the cartoon channels. (I cannot beleive they were showing Didi’s Comedy Show still).
But I would give 2 thumbs up for DTH. The technical support team was good too. I called them once for an issue, they were there the next day to fix it.

Sometime back the cable operators had a strike against the DTH.. right? I just cant belive that. And the govt intervened to help the cable operators.. Crazy crazy thing. I guess govt doesnt care about the consumer… No need for the consumer to get the best product with best prices.

I have Dish TV on my living room on the 29″ TV and i have a Tata Sky on my PC which has a big LCD monitor. Clearly even on a computer LCD monitor Tata Sky beats Dish TV hands down in quality and their service is fantastic.

My word of advice, please dont use Dish TV even if they pay you to use it. Their service is unimaginably awful, so is their quality of channels the info on them and the options/services.

As for CAS, i think CAS will be history soon. Cut wires during rainy season, bad relay quality and uneven charges are killing it by the moment.

@Dilip, I have a question. When you say, DishTv has poor quality of channels; what are you referring to? As far as I know, in DTH market, per TRAI guidelines, all DTH operators will to share their bouquet of channels to others and consequently the channels on offer from service provider would remain the same. Isn’t it?

guys.. sorry to have disturbed the thread.. does anyone here knows about what happened to Squashd a chain of parlour opened in the city last year by T.V. fame Anu hassan…!!?? please let me knoe.. thankyou..!!??